


Can't Buy Me Love (But Coffee)

by alkjira



Series: Nwalin Week [5]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Oblivious Dwalin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:31:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3945520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alkjira/pseuds/alkjira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At first he'd honestly thought that Nori was a prostitute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Buy Me Love (But Coffee)

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, continuing my streak of short fics lol  
> I think that since What The Water Gave Me ended up so long the rest somehow shrunk :O
> 
> Day 5 of Nwalin week “(Breaking) Habits”

At first he'd honestly thought that Nori was a prostitute. Wanting to get paid seemed like a logical reason why someone like _him_ would try to hit on someone like Dwalin; flirting with him every time he came to buy coffee.  
  
The first time he’d come around he’d sauntered up to the counter, telling Dwalin in a voice that was as much purr as actual voice that his name was Nori, like introducing yourself to the person who'd serve your coffee was something normal people did.  
  
And selling sex would have explained why he kept showing up at the café with different people in tow. Didn’t really explain why he went to a café instead of… well, somewhere more suitable to bring people before you had sex with them, but Dwalin didn’t know how things like that was supposed to work anyway.

He’d assumed that it was like in the films with the cheap motels, but perhaps cafés was the modern version of it. Fuck knew that just about the rest of the people in the world came looking for a caffeine fix before doing business, so why not prostitutes.  
  
What his theory didn’t explain was why Nori thought someone working at a café had money to pay someone like him in the first place. Would have made more sense if he'd gone for Bofur since he was the one who owned the place.  
  
It just so happened that Dwalin was quite comfortable, his family didn’t exactly lack for money, and the main reason why he worked at the café was as a favour to Bofur when he couldn’t get anyone else to come in on short notice. But there was no way for Nori to know that.  
  
But on the subject of Bofur…  
  
If it hadn’t been for him it was possible that Dwalin would have kept on believing that Nori wanted to sleep with him for money, but when he accidentally let that particular theory slip, Bofur almost burst something laughing.  
  
Tears streaming down his face Bofur leaned against the counter, sobbing for breath and almost scaring Bilbo almost half to death as he’d been concentrating on stacking cupcakes on top of each other and hadn’t at been prepared for Bofur to sound like a dying hyena.

Once Bofur had recovered somewhat, after one minor setback where he lapsed into fits of renewed laughter when Bilbo hissed at him that he was scaring customers, he gleefully informed them both that Nori was not only _not_ a hooker but that he could probably buy the café with his spare change. 

“With his-“ Bilbo blinked. “What? Who are you talking about anyway?”  
  
“That’d be Nori Rivers,” Bofur snickered. “You know, the guy who wants to get into Dwalin’s trousers.”  
  
“Ah,” Bilbo said and nodded, ignoring the sour look Dwalin sent his way. “Him.”  
  
“Yeah, him. And ‘ _him’_ made his first million before he was 18. Those customers of his are likely business partners, or something like that.” Bofur snickered some more. “Dwalin, mind out of the bloody gutter. And bloody hell, don't either of you ever read the paper?”  
  
At the time Dwalin had frowned. That explanation only made things make even _less_ sense. Nori was not only beautiful, but also clever and apparently rich.  
  
And there wasn’t even anything wrong with the way he flirted. Not that people usually tried to get too pushy with someone looking like Dwalin, but Nori wasn’t in any way rude or impolite. He just smiled and licked his lips and looked entirely too gorgeous while asking random things like what sort of coffee Dwalin enjoyed and what his favourite baked goods were.  
  
Fucking weird.

-  
  
For a while it continued exactly like before Dwalin realised that Nori wasn’t looking to pick up a trick. Nori flirted and Dwalin tried to figure out what he wanted now that he was fairly sure it wasn't for Dwalin to pay him for sex.  
  
And then one day Nori strolled inside the café and walked up to the counter, which wasn’t unusual. But what happened next was.

“I’m trying to cut back on coffee,” the redhead said, leaning against the counter.  
  
“Oh,” Dwalin said, feeling like the very epitome of eloquence.  
  
“So I’m not going to be coming by here much. Staying away from temptation and all that. Younger brother tells me that it’s best to do that when trying to break a habit that’s bad for you.”  
  
“Oh,” Dwalin said again, now with a little more feeling. He’d miss seeing Nori around. He'd gotten used to being flirted with, and as mentioned Nori was not hard on the eyes either.  
  
“Which is why I’d like to ask you-" Nori continued. "-if you’d want to give me your number, or if you’re just going to be relieved that I’ll not come around to bother you?”  
  
“You want my number,” Dwalin said and Nori grinned up at him and nodded.  
  
“Which I think should have been fairly obvious, so were you playing hard to get or am I losing my touch?”  
  
“I didn’t think you were serious,” Dwalin rumbled, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck.  
  
Nori blinked up at him. “Seriously? What would it have taken? Bending over one of your little tables and dropping my trousers? A written invitation? I can do either of those.”  
  
“Please do the latter,” Bofur said as he walked by with a coffee pot. “We’ve got people wanting eating from our tables and your suggestion would violate at least two health codes."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm pretty sure Dwalin gave Nori his number :D


End file.
